Please Stop Breaking and Entering
by Gleam
Summary: Litchi has a houseguest. The problem is that she never invited him in the first place. Somewhat AU, in that Hazama is not a raging psychopath, but has settled for being a pest instead.


**Please Stop Breaking and Entering**

Forty minutes. That's how long she'd been away from the clinic, securing another batch of medical supplies – sad as it was, most of the deliveries were apt to get stolen in the ragged neighborhood where she ran her clinic. So she'd escorted the courier personally, and when she got back, there'd been HAPPY BIRTHDAY banners hung all over the outside of her house, like a clown had exploded directly outside it into a cloud of glitter, poor handwriting, and bad puns.

She stared at the nearest one, a long string hung over the door, declaring WRINKLIER THAN EVER!, before she turned to the courier and pasted a smile on her face with a huge effort. "Thanks for your time. Have you got a pen I can use to sign off on the paperwork, or . . . "

The brown-haired young man grimaced sheepishly, scratching at the back of his head. His eyes were preternaturally wide, too, probably influenced by the breakneck pace she'd set. "No, I keep that in my clipboard, and it fell out when you did that roof hop a couple streets back. Have you got one insi-"

" **No.** " Litchi said, point-blank, and the teenager fell silent, yanking at his collar nervously. The doctor herself fell silent for a long moment, eyes closed as she pinched the bridge of her nose. Finally she raised a hand, and from the bundles of her hair a miniature panda slid into her palm, squealing faintly in some undecipherable ursine emotion. She deposited him on the courier's clipboard, where Lao-Jiu speedily slashed his mistress's name into the paperwork, and into the clipboard to boot.

"Thank you for your time." Litchi said, with a wooden smile, and turned and left the man shifting awkwardly on her porch as she stepped inside to face her worst nightmare.

* * *

"I made _muffins!_ " comes the call as soon as the good doctor shuts her door with perhaps a little more force than is entirely necessary. She ignores the tempting call of pastry treats as she marches into the kitchen (why is it always her kitchen that suffers?) and confronts her own personal daimon.

Shimmying to some unreasonably catchy pop tune, Hazama was swaying about the kitchen, bare feet gliding over the tile with a frustrating ease. He waved at his host happily as he gestured to the stovetop and the steaming tray of baked goods situated there. "See? Muffins! Everything is better now!"

Beaming, he clapped one hand over his heart and inclined his back in a courtly bow. "Happy birthday, miss Faye-Ling."

Litchi's eyebrow twitched. "It's not my birthday."

"Semantics." Hazama dismissed, unmoving from his bow. "Chronological dating is a perceptual error."

"It's not even this month." She continued, eyebrow quivering. "Or this _season_. In fact, you don't even know _when it is,_ do you?"

"I don't need a reason to celebrate you." Hazama said simply, a small smile crossing his face, which drew an answering flush and a reactionary facepalm from Litchi as she reflexively hid it. "I prefer to think that, instead of just leveling up all at once on your birthday, improvement is continuous throughout the year, and that steady gain is noteworthy enough."

Litchi dropped her hand with a mental sigh, realizing, once again, the futility of attempting composure in any conversation with the errant Captain. "My life is not an RPG, and if it was, _you_ would be the final boss. The credits roll whenever you leave."

"I'm glad so much of your life revolves around me." Hazama said happily, and when Litchi closed her eyes in resignation and despair, he slid closer and ring-tossed an origami crown atop her hairbun. It landed slightly off-angle, and Lao-Jiu squealed as he attacked it, only to discover that it was made from bamboo paper. Crunching sounds echoed throughout the small kitchen as he began to nibble on it instead.

"Muffin?" Hazama offered, holding up one of the baked treats, and began making airplane noises with it.

Litchi gave it up and broke out in singularly undignified laughter, as Lao Jiu squeaked and fell off her head, parachuting to the ground with a spare napkin.

* * *

"When did you learn how to cook?" Litchi asked, nibbling carefully on a blueberry muffin. It was good, just – she had to be careful around baked goods. They were addictive, and she didn't have a lot of spare time to go to the gym and burn off those hateful calories. "I pretty much thought you just bothered people. No real other hobbies besides that, I mean."

"Yes, that's why I learned how to cook." Hazama replied with a cocked eyebrow. "Kind of hard to persuade someone else to make dinner for you the day after you set fire to their apartment. Unless you did it with the stove by accident. Then they kind of shove you out of the way and snarl at you with a steak knife in hand. Very hurtful to your feelings, that."

Litchi cast a dubious eye at her uninvited houseguest and mentally thanked whatever divine power happened to be listening that he had learned to cook before he learned where she lived. "And you can't just go out to eat, given that you earn a Captain's salary, and that's not very much money at all." She said, faint sarcasm colouring her tone. Money was a touchy subject for her, considering she ran her clinic essentially pro bono.

"I know exactly what will happen if I try to sit down for a half hour without moving." Hazama said, voice flat, and Litchi's mouth quirked violently at the corners before she glanced sharply away, raising a hand over her mouth and coughing politely. Any amusement she may have felt soured as her companion began a victory dancing that mostly consisted of – _throbbing._

"Stop that." She said, holding up a hand and staring at the table, so that she didn't have to see it. Silence, and then the horrifying realization that she'd taken her eyes off Hazama when he was inside her house, jerked her head back up, and by then he was already gone, her bedroom door swinging wide as he breezed inside. "Stop! No, seriously here –"

 _Click_.

"Hey, I know this song!" Hazama cheered, as her CD player clicked on, and the good doctor's head dropped into her hands to hide her burning cheeks as the CD she'd accidentally left inside began to play. _"-Where did you come from, where did you go, where did you come from, Cotton-Eyed –"_

" **SHUT UP.** " Litchi shrieked, mortified, as he began square dancing with thin air, fatally certain that she was never going to forget this and he was never going to let her. " **THAT WAS A GIFT AND I DIDN'T WANT IT.** "

"Hey, it's alright." Hazama said cheerfully, still bouncing about her bedroom in his barefoot apron like a reject housewife. "Plenty of men like country girls. _Ooh,_ have you got glo-sticks anywhere! I have to do this properly!"

Litchi threw the salt shaker at his head, which he deftly caught and then licked ferociously as other various kitchen implements followed.

* * *

"Did you have to make such a mess?" Hazama inquired, as he carried an armful of plastic kitchenware back inside the kitchen proper, while Litchi fretted over a dent that'd been left in her good non-stick saucepan after she'd finally managed to connect with it.

"Don't even get started." Litchi said evenly, as she finally shrugged and banged on the thing with her palm, popping it back into proper shape with brute force, though she grimaced afterwards and shook out her hand. "You know whose fault it is. You know whose fault it _always_ is."

"I know, but he's such a smooth criminal that he's hard to catch." Hazama mused, as he slid the tongs, spatula, salad fork and other varied culinary tools down into the vase reserved for such things. "I might have to call in outside help."

"Like a psychiatrist?" she returned with a raised eyebrow, as she hung the saucepan up to the sound of an appreciative snicker. She glanced around at the kitchen, mostly cleaned up from the frantic spurt of violence they'd just engaged in, and nodded at the restored orderly state now achieved.

"Winners don't do drugs, babe." Hazama advised, as he kicked back in a nearby chair and extracted a tablet from an inner jacket pocket, poking it with a finger as it booted up. "I'm straight-edge, a clean man."

Litchi actually smirked, turning to glance at Hazama "You're as straight as a –"

Pause.

" – are you feeding me lines?" Litchi asked suspiciously, a sudden feeling of doom overcoming her.

"Well I can't expect you to just jump into the deep end of devastatingly witty retorts alone now can I." Hazama replied idly, flicking through stock reports with all the interest of a monkey. "I have to make sure you can float first. There's no point in a swimming competition if one contestant drowns ten seconds in."

Litchi closed her eyes, eyebrow twitching. "Thanks for that, Hazama. Really. Makes me feel so much better."

"You're improving!" Hazama assured her with the barest grin imaginable. "Just, you know, give it time. And more afternoon slots with your sexy sexy tutor."

She shook her head, huffing faintly at the reluctant smile crossing her lips. "No, really, why are you here? This isn't my birthday. I – appreciate the effort you put into it, but really –"

"It's the anniversary of your clinic's opening." Hazama interrupted, as she fell silent, blinking. "And don't tell me it was a team effort. You began this alone because you thought something should be done to help people who had no one else. And then they had you, and no one else."

Litchi's cheeks flushed, and she glanced down into lap, hands folded there tightly. She'd forgotten, what with how busy she'd been recently.

An offered cup of tea intruded into her vision, and she glanced up to see Hazama extending it, with that barest crook to his lips, so different from his usual wide, mocking grins. Gentler. "So: happy anniversary, Litchi. May the next be as happy."

She took the cup, turning it about in her hands, and sipped from it for a long moment until her cheeks stopped burning. When she lowered it, she arched an eyebrow at her guest again, a teasing glint in her eyes. "You shouldn't say that to women you don't know. That's weird, Hazama."

"I don't." He replied, comfortably, and she laughed a silver-bell peal as he licked a finger and drew a line in the air, on top of what was probably another forty-five points for his side or so. Considering he was the only one keeping count, that is.


End file.
